By Teddy Amenabar
As the wildfires in Maui tore through the town of Lahaina, some people fled into the ocean to try to escape the encroaching flames.
“We hid behind a jetty because the wind was so hot,” one man told a local television news station, KHON. “We tried to hold on as much as we could until the Coast Guard came.”
“It felt like we were in hell,” he added.
The US Coast Guard rescued 14 people from the harbour, much of which has been destroyed. All of the survivors are reported to be in stable condition. The wildfires have killed at least 55 people.
The ocean, a lake or a swimming pool might seem like a safe haven when you’re trying to escape a raging fire. But, experts say jumping into a body of water isn’t always your best chance for survival.
Jack Minassian, an associate professor of fire science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said the water is “a last resort” to escape a fire.
“The better option is to evacuate early,” Minassian said. He recommends people create an evacuation plan with multiple escape routes in case they need to leave their home because of a wildfire.
Experts say in recent years there’s been a proliferation of “no-notice” wildfires where residents have little to no warning to leave their homes.
There are stories of people jumping into pools, lakes or oceans to find refuge from wildfires.
In 2017, one California couple survived by staying in a neighbour’s pool for hours as the nearby houses burned, but another woman perished in a pool, possibly overcome by smoke.
Experts say you should do everything you can to get out of the area rather than being forced into water to escape a fire.
Even if you’re submerged underwater and protected from the burning flames, you’re still at risk from ash and embers falling from the sky. And it’s going to become harder to breathe if the fire is raging around you.
“You probably won’t get burned, but that’s not what’s going to kill you,” said Carl Otsuka, fire inspector for the Honolulu Fire Department. “It’s the smoke that’s going to kill you.”
Otsuka said that if the roads are blocked, you should grab a bicycle or do whatever you can to get away. Try to relocate uphill, upwind, to get away from the billowing smoke, he said.
Crystal Kolden, a professor of fire science at the University of California at Merced, said people often imagine wildfires travel in a “wall of flame,” and once the fire sweeps past you, you’re relatively safe.
Wildfires, like the one in Maui, do travel fast, but smaller fires can “hopscotch” in front of the main inferno. Certain sources of fuel, like houses, burn for hours.
“You can’t outrun these fires,” Kolden said.
All of this means that if you seek refuge in the water, you may be stuck there for several hours “before the coast is clear,” Kolden said.
“People don’t realise how long you’re going to be in the water,” Kolden said. “Hypothermia and risk of drowning due to not being able to swim or tread water for that long are very real possibilities.”
The flames may run out of fuel, but the smoke will linger.
“You literally can’t see anything, so you don’t know if it’s safe to get out yet,” Kolden said.
In Australia, communities are designating certain locations as a “nearby safer place” for people who can’t evacuate because roads are blocked or the wildfire is spreading so fast, Kolden said. These are often local rugby or football fields that are watered and mowed year round.
“Those nice, green irrigated lawns, they don’t burn,” Kolden said. “If you get in the middle of that and you get down low on the ground where the coolest, cleanest air is, then you have a much higher likelihood of surviving.”
If you can’t evacuate, it’s important to try to get away from fuel sources that can produce smoke and heat, Kolden said.
The football field at the local high school, an open field or even an empty parking lot can be the best place to go if there’s no way to escape a wildfire.
“You don’t want to get caught in your car. You don’t want to get caught in a forest,” Kolden said.
